Tech Unemployment Down. Hiring Demand Up

What’s the No. 1 ranked college in the National Cyber League?

Hint: It’s not a school you’ve likely heard of unless you live in California or you’ve competed in the NCL competition.

It’s Chico State, officially, California State University – Chico. For three semesters – the last two consecutive — the university in the far northern part of the state has come in at the top of the Cyber Power Rankings.

To achieve that distinction, Chico’s student team had to trump teams from more than 450 other colleges and universities in performing real-world cybersecurity tasks. Annually, some 10,000 students (including some still in high school) enter the National Cyber League competition, testing their skill at identifying hackers from forensic data, pentesting and auditing vulnerable websites, recovering from ransomware attacks and more.

Registration for the Fall 2020 competition is now open. Practice sessions begin Sept. 14 with the individual games starting Oct. 23 and the team competition set to begin Nov. 6th.

Besides the competitive aspect of the games, it’s a learning experience for the participants who are assigned a coach to advise them and help them through the tough practices. Competitors become part of a community lead by Cyber League “Ambassadors” who are experienced players. Some are working professionals; others are students.

Of special value are the scouting reports each player gets. These reports are detailed metrics of a participant’s performance in the competition, listing their national rank and percentile, bracket rank and percentile, performance score, accuracy and completions in each of the 9 categories, as well as the national and bracket averages.

Job candidates often include these reports and rankings in their resume and applications. Employers can also source candidates from these reports. As one of the Ambassadors explained in a blog post, “Companies pay NCL to produce these scoring reports so that they can scout the best of the best collegiate cyber-athletes.”

The Cyber League was born in 2011 when a group of cybersecurity professionals and academics from several public agencies came together to create “an innovative way for students to apply what they were learning in class.” So they designed the competition to be both an exciting “game-meets-edutainment” and a learning opportunity.

Individuals can participate in the competition even if they don’t have a team. This is how many of the high school students are involved. In the preseason part their fundamental skills are tested so they get placed in the appropriate bracket. In the individual games, participants compete against others of the same skill level. The team game follows.

The power rankings are developed from the individual competition and team competition scores.

Photo by FLY:D on Unsplash

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What’s the hottest job market for tech talent?

Purely by the number of jobs posted, that would be the San Francisco Bay Area. Between San Jose at the southern end of the bay and San Francisco at the Golden Gate to the north, companies posted 303,466 IT jobs, according to CompTIA’s Tech Town Index.

In sheer numbers, the other metro areas in the Index pale in comparison. Only Washington, D.C. and Dallas come close, posting, respectively, 260,000 and 178,579 jobs in the year ending July 31.

If volume was all there was to consider, then Austin, Texas wouldn’t hold the top position on the Tech Town Index. But it does, because the annual report, as CompTIA explains, “Points IT pros in the direction of where opportunity intersects with affordability and quality of life across the United States.”

With a cost of living far below that of Silicon Valley, and 4% below the national average, Austin’s affordability is 4th among the 20 metro areas included in the Tech Town Index. “That’s a bonus for IT pros who earn a median salary of $87,880 here,” says the report.

Austin is also booming. In 2019 58 tech companies relocated to the metro area bringing with them 4,648 jobs. Collectively, the 5,500 startups and tech firms posted 68,323 jobs in the 12 months covered by the report.

Right behind Austin is Dallas. Between the 2019 and 2020 CompTIA reports, the number of advertised tech positions increased by 22%. Total jobs are projected to grow at 3% next year and, in 5 years, by 11% to 190,000. With a cost of living 2% below the national average, a median tech salary of $94,044 and a vibrant night life and sports teams “tech professionals are finding opportunity and quality of life in Dallas,.” the report says.

Most of the metro areas on the list are familiar tech centers. Seattle, Boston, the Research Triangle metro areas of Raleigh and Durham-Chapel Hill, Denver and Silicon Valley’s San Jose and San Francisco are all represented, the latter two in 4th and 7th place despite their high cost of living.

Some less well-known tech areas such as Madison, Wisconsin and Huntsville, Alabama, home of NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center, also made the list.

Trenton, New Jersey, which had been among the top 20 metros on the Index in 2018, then fell off a year later, returned in the recent report ranking 20th. “Advertising for nearly 13,000 technology jobs in the past 12 months, the tech economy is on the rise,” the report notes, “and the city’s location is the biggest draw. Located in central New Jersey on the Delaware River, Trenton is easily accessible to both New York and Philadelphia.”

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